A Glance At The Universe

By Cleofas Uchoa

The wombs of supernovas gave birth to all forms of life, including the human, the only one who knows that it is gifted with awareness of its own existence. With self-consciousness, our race become at once a spectator and a performer in the cosmic theather. Even though seemingly insignificant in a scenario that encompasses billions of galaxies, we cam become a fundamental link in the evolution of all that will ever exist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vermelho Marinho
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9788582650608

Book preview

The wombs of supernovas gave birth to all forms of life, including the human, the only one who knows that it is gifted with awareness of its own existence. With self-consciousness, our race became at once a spectator and a performer in the cosmic theater. Even though seemingly insignificant in a scenario that encompasses billions of galaxies, we can become a fundamental link in the evolution of all that will ever exist.

If we are not here for some reason, and if we are merely the fruit of a long sucession of improbable, fortuitous occurrences, we have the duty to make worthy use of this opportunity. Advances in knowledge have placed us en route to a growing complexity. During the billions of years yet to come, our consciousness could assume forms very different than the present and spread throughout the cosmos.

Cleofas Uchôa offers a perpective of the universe that prepares us for incredible advances. But with a warning: only with solidarity and cooperation to share energies and generate more knowledge will human consciousness be able to continue evolving to the point in which it no longer needs material support to exist, thereby merging with the universe itself.

A GLANCE AT THE UNIVERSE

by Cleofas Uchôa

Rio de Janeiro

2014

English Edition

Original title in Portuguese:

Um Olhar para o Universo – Somos Nada no Cosmo?

Copyright© 2013 by Cleofas Uchôa

ISBN: 978-85-8265-014-1

1) Astronomy; 2) Cosmos; 3) Universe

CDD: 520

Portuguese original published by:

EDITORA VERMELHO MARINHO USINA DE LETRAS LTDA

Editorial Department:

Rua Visconde de Silva, 60 / 102 – Botafogo – Rio de Janeiro - RJ

Postal Code: 22271-092 Brazil

www.vermelhomarinho.com

Translation into English:

Edward F. Thiery

seta The editorial standards used for this English translation are based on the 14th Edition of The Chicago Manual of Style by the University of Chicago Press.

Stars – lithograph by M.C. Escher, October 1948

Attention!

He who receives becomes a creditor, and he who gives becomes a debtor.

Heloisa de Medeiros – writer – 1915-2011

Mankind, which has received all that it has from Nature, takes the attitude of creditor, and, since it is insatiable and devouring, it demands more and more of Gaia, who is always our debtor. We want more! This is an extremely dangerous behavior.

Are we insignificant in the cosmos or irrelevant? This question has accompanied us throughout time as the object of philosophy and religion. Although we are small in cosmic dimensions and very recent in time dimensions, we are a very complex structure, and a very rare one. Are we in the middle of a micro or macro cosmos as a sort of consciousness, an emergent phenomenon of the complexity of matter, probably among so many different ones that could permeate the entire universe, one that only now has begun to perceive its immense responsibility?

It is important to remember that the known universe amounts about 5% of the whole cosmos, of which being 4% is invisible matter and the other 1% is the visible matter. The indications of this are becoming more and more numerous. Much as in Plato’s Parable of the Cave, we see but a shadow of what really exists. We are semantically calling the other 95% of the cosmos dark with the sense of unknowable. We are facing a new revolution in our visions of the cosmos. With a new glance we are trying to perceive a new, multiple universe, or a multiverse, and diminishing our blindness about its nature and origin. We humans could be a transition phase of consciousness evolution. Besides, the universe itself is neither static, immutable, eternal, infinite, nor perfect. We must think about this in order to evolve. Things are not as we see them. The stars are not fixed on a dome. They are always changing; no matter our belief, they are fixed. The change in the cosmos was first perceived by humans when on November 11th, 1572, we saw a new light, a new star, shining in the Cassiopeia constellation. A supernova was born, and we started to think in a new way. We discovered later that actually this star was dying, a supernova exploding, a necessary phenomenon for our existence. As Carl Sagan said, we are stardust. All the atoms that we know were created in the explosions of supernovae.

In the middle of the seventeenth century we started to change 2000 years of our vision towards the universe. Now it is time to change again. Do we result of a divine Creator, or do we result of a creator universe? Why does the universe require a Creator? Did we really need a First Cause? Who created the Creator? And, if the universe is eternal, the need for the concept of a Creator disappears. The concepts of eternity and infinity are incompatible with the idea of a Creator. Could it be that consciousness, or awareness, requires the existence of life as a First Cause? I have doubts about this. The arisen question is not that concerning intelligent life, which is nothing more than a detail. It is, rather, that of consciousness and how it can be manifested in multiple and distant structures in the multiverse.

The cosmologist Lawrence M Krauss said: After all, what is the difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one?

Our horizon and all structures, either micro or macro, simple or complex, are always changing, independently of who is observing them. So what we call reality doesn’t exist. Truth, reality, and final theories are incompatible with our current glance at the universe. We still live like those chained to the wall in Plato’s cave.

All of this is the subject of this book to help us create a new vision of the Cosmos and a new behavior, a new function, a new paradigm, even knowing that the new view will also be ephemeral. We cannot survive nor evolve if we remain with current paradigms. Just take a look at the strange behavior of human beings (possessive, egocentric, and omnipotent and therefore unhappy) and what is happening to our evolution on this planet. Just a quick glance, please!

P.S. This book was written before the new one by the physicist, astronomer, and philosopher Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning (June 2014). Had I first read and studied his teachings in his new book, my new book would have more content. However, just being able to savor better the thought of Marcelo Gleiser gave me a boost. Do not fail to read it, for it is one of the best books that I could recommend about different, imperfect, but complementary knowledge that exists and will exist.

Dedication

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,

but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Attributed to an unidentified letter to Pres. Harry S. Truman

Albert Einstein

To my ancestors who, despite the innumerable plights in which they found themselves, loved them and made me appear in this backwater of the cosmos.

To all members of my family, and especially to my young descendants: sons Eduardo Henrique, João Cleofas, Fernando Luís & Júlio César; grandchildren Henrique, Priscila, Luana, Joana, Miguel, Pedro Felipe, João Otavio, Cleofas, Júlia & Victor; & greatgrandson, Anthony. They give meaning to my existence and fill me with unimaginable hopes for the evolution of consciousness.

Very special thanks to André Cleofas, who supported and stimulated the activities for this English version.

A very, very special thanks to Edward F. Thiery, who, with intelligence, persistence, and competence, reviewed and translated the Portuguese original, making many wonderful suggestions and adding some concepts which resulted in a much better text for the readers.

I also dedicate this to all the others whom I have had the luck to know on this heavenly body.

Note to the Reader

There are trivial truths and there are great truths.

The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.

The opposite of a great truth is also true.

Niels Bohr

We, mankind, contain the possibilities of the earth’s immense

future, and can realise more and more of them on conditions

that we increase our knowledge and our love. That is, it seems to

me, the distillation of The Phenomenon of Man.

Last paragraph in the introduction to the English translation

of Le Phénomène Humain.

Sir Julian Huxley

London, December 1958

First of all, regarding historic eras, I have opted to use the following neutral terms:

B.C.E. This means Before the Common Era. I prefer to use it instead of B.C., Before Christ, to keep this book neutral to the three monotheistic religions, as it is a term with no religious connotations, which might offend non-Christians.

C.E. This means Common Era. I prefer to use it instead of A.D., the abbreviation of the Latin Anno Domini, in the Year of the Lord, meaning the Year of Lord Jesus, for the same reason that I use B.C.E. instead of B.C.

This book, which presents an optimistic view about the phenomenon of man, seeks to contribute to the reader’s insight into the evolution of consciousness in the universe. The chapters are arranged so as to form a conceptual unit, but each one of them was conceived as an isolated essay, so the reader may choose the order that suits her or him. Although it is built on concepts formed by the eternal quest for human knowledge, this book is far from a scientific work and far from science fiction. It is about the dissemination of some relevant aspects and concepts of current scientific knowledge. So I request my readers to be kind in their reactions to some scientific concepts that I have presented in a general, or bird’s-eye, view.

It is said that, if you copy from one person, it is plagiarism; if you copy from many, it is research. This book is research.

It is, in other words, my present personal speculations and interpretations about the perspectives of life and consciousness in the universe and about our ephemeral and complex existence, a topic always subject to natural controversies.

I hope that it helps us build a new vision of the universe.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

PART I - A GLANCE AT THE UNIVERSE

1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR WORLDVIEWS

Masks

The magic mask

The mythic mask

The divine mask

The geometric mask

The medieval mask

The deterministic mask

The masquerade – the eternal dance

2. A COSMIC PROCESS

The physical merger

• The primordial nucleosynthesis

• The birth of the galaxies

• Star children

• Dawn of new syntheses

The chemical merger

The psychic merger

• The most recent mergers

• The path of planetization

3. COSMIC METAPHORS

Cosmic wealth

Cosmic inflation

4. IS TIME AN ILLUSION?

The importance of mental experimentation

What is the nature of time?

Common sense fools us

How does common sense about time work?

• Cyclical time

• Linear and irreversible time

• Absolute time

New concepts of time

• Scales

• The amount of movement and the intensity of gravitational fields

• Situations and moods

• Could time be an illusion?

PART II - STRANGE ALLIANCES

5. ORDER & DISORDER

Order and disorder in the Universe

Order and disorder in life

Order and disorder in societies

Complexity

Why are complexities ephemeral?

What good are heretics?

6. COMPETITION & COOPERATION

Competition in the natural world

Competition in the phenomenon of man

Cooperation in the natural world

Cooperation in the phenomenon of man

Cooperation in the physical and chemical worlds

PART III - THE UNIMAGINABLE

7. IN QUEST OF A NEW WORLDVIEW

Belvederes of the universe

Anthropocentrism and the route to non-anthropocentrism

New paths: breakdown and optimism

The mask of uncertainty

The secret melody

8. AN ODE TO OPTIMISM

In Quest of God

AFTERWORD

Education – That which distinguishes us as a species

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RECOMMENDED READING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Coming Books by Cleofas Uchôa

Introduction

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by

the level of thinking that created them.

Albert Einstein

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet to his friend from school

Hamlet, Act I, Scene v, 166-7 (circa 1599-1602)

While acquiring awareness (about 200 thousand years ago), Homo sapiens sapiens has been plagued by three questions: how, why, and what for the world around him exists.

How the evolution of the universe occurs has been the object of science, whose method has enabled us to progressively obtain reasonable precision in the explication of the great number of phenomena that we see in the cosmos and in their interrelationships in the diverse scales of time, space, and complexity.

Why and what for, which relate to the meaning, purpose, or design of the universe, are matters pertaining to the field of faith with beliefs, myths, and religions.

Faith, with its metaphysical overtones, has also been relevant for our behavior. It provides psychological well-being and has favored the unification of social groups, despite its also being provocative of conflict.¹ Even though this field is based on dogmas originated from the knowledge of ancient times, their metaphors and parables are out-of-tune with our greatly changed human knowledge.

However, whether based on science or on faith, in the course of time, all worldviews end in decay and extinction, being replaced by new visions. Everything in the universe is always temporary. Everything that is born evolves, and dies, and this process hides a message that, despite uncountable attempts, has not yet been deciphered.

At this point it is relevant to remember that Galileo Galilei, the great Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist (1564-1642), declared that science does not tell us how to go to Heaven but, rather, how the heavens go. Faith, on the other hand, does generally tell us how to go to heaven. As the Brazilian physicist Marcelo Gleiser wrote in his latest book, Myths attempt to explain the unknown with the unknowable, while science attempts to explain the unknown with the knowable. ( The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning, Chap. 1, p. 3, June 3, 2014). Faith alone encourages intellectual laziness. Absolute faith is easier and more comfortable because it does not arouse the evolutional tensions of doubt, which teaches us how to face our weaknesses and thereby evolve.

In